When I decided to take a vow of silence for one year, I really meant it. I’m starting from scratch because I lost it last weekend. I just couldn’t control myself and I blurted. I am determined to practice silence for one year. This means that it is a conscious practice. I’m not just doing it as a novelty or a personal experiment.

I really believe that peace must start with me. It must. Peace doesn’t happen “out there.” It has to happen from within myself, because everything I perceive comes from my own mind.

I overlay my interpretations onto everything I experience. That means that the entire world originates from my own heart. If I see violence in the world, it must come from something inside me. That means I have to change it. It is my responsibility.

Last weekend I broke my vow of silence. It was a conscious choice. It was motivated by anger and fear. I admit it. I am a human-becoming-spirit-being. I know that by speaking angry words, it can only come back to me in the future.

I accept that I made a mistake and that I must move on with determination to perfect myself. Why? Because that is the only way I can create a world full of perfectly happy beings. I realize that this is a radical perspective that contradicts the worldview I was raised in and the worldview that the majority of people operate in. But this doesn’t mean it’s wrong. If I’m right – that peace starts with me – then I have to prove it to myself.

I am determined. This is not just a little experiment. It is a radical self-transformation motivated by the desire to change the world. My one-year vow of silence has been extended to September 22, 2013. And I will extend it for as long as I need to. I am learning.